Elite Female Athletes Open Up About Being Body-Shamed

People get body-shamed for all kinds of different reasons. Whether someone has called you too skinny, too fat, too masculine, too tall, too short...whatever...if you've been there, you know how badly those words can hurt.

In this amazing video, Cosmopolitan spoke with five elite female athletes who reveal that they, too, were body-shamed.

In addition to being total bada**es, these girls have crazy amounts of confidence and teach us a lot about being proud of your body even when other people try to make you feel bad about it.

"I was body-shamed in high school," Natasha reveals. "I was teased for looking like a boy...I've always had an athletic build. I embrace who I am and I'm not ashamed of being all woman, but being strong and being a figure of strength. I think it's important that women know who they are and aren't afraid to stand up for that."
The girls all tell a similar story about being criticized for not having the stereotypical female form, not having big enough boobs or a big enough butt - and how they came to understand that, as Jessica brilliantly observed, 'strong is the new beautiful.'

As Christmas explains, you have to mentally train for how you feel about your body the same way you train for your sport - and no matter how perfect your body might be, people will still try to body-shame you, so you have to be stronger than the haters.

When we look at these strong and incredibly inspiring women, we can't even believe anybody could ever criticize them - but that's exactly the point. You can't control the mean things people say to or about you, but you can control whether or not you choose to believe them.

“The ultimate goal for all of us is to be playing for the same amount of money as the guys and playing on the same golf course, the best golf courses like the guys and playing for the same amount of money, that's where we all want to get to. I hope I'm still on Tour when it happens, if it happens."

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